Saturday, June 19, 2004

Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda

The media is trying to report that the Bush administration was wrong about a contact between Saddam and Osama. Even Democrat members of the commission admit the links. Real Clear Politics does a good job of cutting through the media distortion.

WASHINGTON POST
"Were there contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq? Yes," Thomas H. Kean (R), the panel's chairman, said at a news conference. "What our staff statement found is there is no credible evidence that we can discover, after a long investigation, that Iraq and Saddam Hussein in any way were part of the attack on the United States."


CHENEY RESPONDS ON CNBC
CHENEY: What The New York Times did today was outrageous. They do a lot of outrageous things but the headline, "Panel Find No Qaida-Iraq Tie". The press wants to run out and say there's a fundamental split here now between what the president said and what the commission said. Jim Thompson is a member of the commission who's since been on the air. I saw him with my own eyes. And there's no conflict. What they were addressing was whether or not they were involved in 9/11. And there they found no evidence to support that proposition. They did not address the broader question of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida in other areas, in other ways.

There are critics who think the Iraq invasion was wrong because they weren't involved in 911. That's an opinion. Another opinion says that we should defeat countries with terrorist ties before they do us any danger.

The reason for the 911 commission was to see if there was something we could have done to prevent tha attack. Bush's Iraq policy was designed so that they couldn't do what Osama had done. Whether Saddam funded Osama or the other way around misses the point that both factions were firmly anti-American and hellbent on our destruction.

UPDATE: What does Brokaw know?

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